Energy Development in Iran
To secure the second presidential term, therefore, Rouhani must be able to unhinge the system of resistance adopted in the United States by those who oppose the success of the agreement, forcing the hand of the Europeans and bringing home tangible and above all symbolically visible results in a short time..
According to Topschoolsintheusa, the progressive development of the negotiations and the definition of a new and certainly more positive image of Iran within the international community coincided, however, with the equally progressive deterioration of stability in a large part of the Middle East.
In the areas of the Persian Gulf, the Levant and the Caucasus, there has been a proliferation of conflicts and tensions which in a more or less direct way exercise a risk factor for Iranian national interests.
Since 2011, Syria has plunged into a civil war that has already claimed over 300,000 victims, caused on the one hand by the senseless violence of the Bashar al-Assad regime against the opposition forces and on the other by the external contribution of a large number of actors – regional and non-regional – willing to destabilize Syria with the intent of indirectly targeting Iran. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have helped to finance and equip the opposition militias expression of jihadist Salafist matrix and Al Qaeda, while the United States and Turkey have sought in a first step to strengthen the role of the militias made up of defectors ‘army.
The reaction – very violent – of the forces of Bashar al-Assad, but also the growing contribution of Iran and the forces of the Lebanese Hezbollah have made it possible to re-establish the balance of forces on the ground, giving the regime the ability to reorganize and regain some areas strategic areas of the country.
From the clash between diverse backgrounds jihadist militias was born between 2011 and 2012 the Islamic State, which was originally located in Iraq and then penetrated in Syria is fighting the forces of the Syrian regime and those of jihadism matrix Al Qaeda. The entry of Russia in 2016 with a powerful military contingent and the strengthening of Iranian forces on the ground made it possible to re-establish more favorable balances in Damascus, although the prospect of stability or even a peace agreement still appears distant.
The development of political dynamics in Iraq is also particularly sensitive for Iran, where as a result of the sectarian policy adopted by the former premier Al-Maliki, the Islamic State was able to occupy about a third of the territory – the one with a Sunni majority – blatantly defeating the weak military forces of the central government of Baghdad and establishing a territorial autonomy connected with that of the areas under jihadist control in Syria.
Also in this juncture, Iran intervened by supporting the government of Baghdad militarily and economically, without however succeeding in obtaining the desired successes in the struggle for the liberation of the occupied provinces.
After a long reorganization phase of the Iraqi armed forces, in 2016 a slow phase of reconquest of the areas controlled by the Islamic State began, with the liberation of some important centers such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
However, the area controlled by the Islamic State still remains large and the management of the liberated areas is still difficult, where the fear of a hegemonic and sectarian role of the Shiite component continues to cause concern and fuel a widespread and well-rooted hostility to the military forces of the central government..
In Afghanistan, the persistence of the political and economic fragility of the central authorities, thanks to tribalism and rampant corruption, has favored the re-emergence of the Taliban formations which, taking advantage of the reduction of the international contingent, have returned to represent a threat to the stability of the country and of the neighboring areas. The activism of Iran in the region has awakened the fears – only dormant – of the Arab monarchies, and in particular of Saudi Arabia, which attribute to Tehran a hegemonic and sectarian design for domination over the region. The Shiite communities of the Gulf, which have long been in turmoil due to the marginalization and repression of which they have been subjected by the Sunni monarchies, have become in the Saudi perception the vanguard of the expansionist aims of Iran,
To this scenario, already complex and somewhat unstable in itself, was then added the crisis in Syria and the subsequent conflict with the Shiite minorities of the Houthis, which Saudi Arabia once again considers as an expression of Tehran’s longa manus.
The Iranian political-ideological model, based on a semi-authoritarianism with participatory and pluralist connotations (bottom-up system), is therefore clearly opposed to the top-down and inaccessible one (top-down system) of the Saudis and most of the locals Arab monarchies, openly colliding and producing instability along all border areas of the Islamic Republic. While, however, Iran seems to be in full swing in the aftermath of the definition of the nuclear deal and the substantial stability of its political and institutional apparatus, Saudi Arabia is affected by a dangerous phase of crisis that pushes it towards adoption of increasingly drastic and harmful measures in terms of security and the economy.
